Harmony Day welcomes Middle Eastern refugees to Australia

As part of Harmony Day, Australian's have come together to celebrate our rich cultural diversity.

New South Wales will take in up to seven thousand Syrian and Iraqi refugees Australia has committed to resettling.

New South Wales will take in up to seven thousand Syrian and Iraqi refugees Australia has committed to resettling. (SBS) Source: SBS

Australia is one of the most multicultural nations on Earth.

More than seven million migrants have settled here over the past 70 years and 2016 is no exception.

Thousands of refugees who have fled persecution in Syria and Iraq are expected to arrive under the country's special humanitarian intake.


Just over one hundred of the twelve thousand Syrian and Iraqi refugees to be resettled in Australia have arrived in the country.

At least ninety of them have a new home in New South Wales, and among the latest is the Kaky family, who arrived just a few days ago.

Originally from Iraq, Ayad , Kaky, Iptesam Abba and their two children, eight-year-old Mark and two-year-old Rita, have recently resettled in Sydney.

Mr Kaky said he and his family are delighted to be given the chance to build a new life in Australia.

"We are looking forward to leave our past behind, and we are looking forward, also, to open a new page, a new blank page, of our life."

New South Wales premier Mike Baird said he is proud to be able to give the family that opportunity.

"I want to welcome them and, obviously, we already, to this date, have, I think, about 80 refugees in the new intake who have come here to New South Wales. But this is, obviously, a family that represents the human face, the human story, of what this refugee intake is all about."


New South Wales will take in up to seven thousand Syrian and Iraqi refugees Australia has committed to resettling.

The NSW Coordinator-General for Refugee Resettlement, Professor Peter Shergold, assured they will have plenty of opportunity.

"We've got every New South Wales university and the TAFEs offering scholarships for refugees. We've got businesses who are providing mentoring and work-experience and job opportunities, he said.

“We've got wonderful community organisations like Settlement Services International who are working with Department of Premier and Cabinet to look for the gaps and how we can improve refugee services."

Also celebrating Harmony Day were students at Sydney's al-Hikma College.

As one of the country's most diverse schools, it represents a microcosm of Australia's multiculturalism.

Principal Yasmin Gamereldien said, despite the school being Islamic, it welcomes all cultures and religions. 

"We are very diverse. We are an Islamic school, but people who adhere to this religion aren't homogenous, they come from many different parts of the world," she said.

Most of Australia's population is made up of people whose families only arrived in the country within the last 200 years.

But Indigenous performer David Barrnett's ancestors have been in the land for tens of thousands.

"This is not our land -- it is our land, it is everybody's, so these kids need to understand that it's their land to look after as well. We're all one people," he said.

And in Canberra, the Governor-General hosted over one thousand migrants for a long lunch on the lawns of Government House.

Along the three hundred and twenty seven metre table were Australians of all nationalities.


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By Abbie O'Brien, Emma Hannigan


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Harmony Day welcomes Middle Eastern refugees to Australia | SBS News